Storming the Castle



""Have fun stormin' da castle!""

- Miracle Max, The Princess Bride

There are really only a few good ways to end an action movie. You've got your car chase, your mano-a-mano showdown, your mano-a-mano-a-mano-a-mano-a-mano showdown, and your grand, sweeping Final Battle. These are all well and good, but sometimes the Big Bad isn't gracious enough to come to you. In that case, you'd better go to them.

That means it's time to gear up and assault the bad guy's home base. Sure, maybe it's guarded by countless extremely well-trained warriors, a squad of bounty hunters looking for your head, and even The Dragon, but what choice do you have? Maybe the villain's got your secret sauce recipe, and he's not afraid to use it. Maybe he's gonna force your girlfriend to marry him. Maybe he just can't be trusted not to come back worse than before. In any case, the only way to stop him is to take him down.

In Real Life, particularly during the Middle Ages, actually storming the castle was the tactic of last resort, due to how most fortifications are built specifically to give the defenders every advantage possible. Hence why they're called "fortifications". Any sort of direct assault on properly built and manned fortifications required a hell of a numerical advantage, very solid morale, and often repeated attacks--and even then it would be an absolute bloodbath. More often sieges were won by cutting off the defenders from supplies and starving them to death or surrender (which could take years), or by breaching the defenses from the outside and marching in that way (not always practical). Going through the front door is almost always a suicide mission (assuming it's even possible), but don't tell that to any Hollywood directors.

While Storming the Castle can take place before the story's climax, the results are generally less dramatic. When it's done as the ending of a video game, it's The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. If a villain does this to the heroes, it's All Your Base Are Belong to Us.

May constitute a Suicide Mission. Compare Foe-Tossing Charge, which is on a smaller scale.

In a variant, instead of directly attacking the castle with massive forces, a small party will sneak in (through the sewers, disguised as delivering supplies, etc.) and attempt to take the castle from within.

Anime and Manga

 * The first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has the heroes storming the Garden of Time.
 * Its third season has two castles being stormed at the same time: Fate, Schach, and Verossa attack Jail Scaglietti's lab, while Nanoha, Hayate, Vita, and a ton of air mages attack the Saint's Cradle. Everyone else is preventing an All Your Base Are Belong to Us situation.
 * Mazinger Z Grand Finale has the heroes storming the Island of Hell, where Big Bad Dr. Hell had his Supervillain Lair.
 * Happens in Read or Die, and twice in ROD the TV.
 * Each of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's four arcs ends this way. The "castles" of the first three each become the good guys' headquarters for the next arc.
 * Spike's one-man assault (which briefly becomes two when Shin joins him) on the Red Dragon building in the finale of Cowboy Bebop.
 * Episode 26 of Seto no Hanayome is a hilariously over the top mission into a noble's castle in order to rescue Sun.
 * Mobile Suit Gundam, with the assault on Zeon's fortress "A Bao A Qu" during the final episodes.
 * Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
 * Witch Hunter Robin's last episode.
 * Mai-Otome's last episode, where the "castle" is Garderobe Academy (which had already been stolen from the good guys).
 * The Final Dirty Pair TV episode involves the girls rescuing their boss from Eagle's Dare Mountain. In an escalating series of plans that start with floating in with a hot air ballon wearing cat costumes, and culminating with them walking through the front door after Kei flashes the guards.
 * The climax of Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Unusual in that it's not the Raalgon mothership they end up storming, but . Shortly before this they actually do storm the Raaglon mothership, with not-immediately-obvious results.
 * Bleach has to date based two entire story arcs on this trope; first storming Soul Society to save Rukia and then storming Hueco Mundo to save Orihime.
 * A truly epic version is seen in the Enies Lobby fight in One Piece. They work their way up a whole Sorting Algorithm of Evil, starting with Marines, moving up to Cipher Pol agents, then to the Watchdog Unit, two giants, the Just Eleven Jurymen, Three-Headed Baskerville, and finally CP9 themselves. Whew.
 * And of course, more recently, there's the Impel Down arc. Not-at-all-Short summary: Luffy sneaks into Impel Down to save his brother, (yes. Luffy was actually stealthy. I kid you not) and meets several of his old enemies, such as Mr. 3, Buggy, and the bizarre Mr. 2 Bon Clay. They use a combination of fighting and stealth while making their way to level four of the prison, until the warden poisons Luffy and leaves him for dead on a really cold floor... until both Bon Clay rescues Luffy, then nearly freezes to death himself, and are miraculously rescued by Emporio Ivankov. It Makes Sense in Context. He (at that time) cures Luffy, who eats an inhuman amount of food in a gluttonous Crowning Moment of Awesome. Luffy and Ivankov start their second attempt at storming the castle, rescuing two of the seven warlords of the sea, one of which is a former enemy of Luffy's. With the help of several okama and prisoners they rescue along the way (It makes sense in... hell, never mind. It barely makes sense in the manga) they rip through Impel Down in a combination of an all-out brawl, a prison riot, and panicked fleeing. Around the midway point, a second Storming the Castle occurs on the same prison, when Blackbeard betrays the Marines and breaks into it to recruit some prisoners for his crew.
 * In Dragon Ball, As soon as received directions there, Son Goku stormed the Red Ribbon Army HQ by himself, to take the rest of the Dragon Balls from them, after their hitman killed his friend. While his friends did travel alongside him to back him up, expecting incredible danger, Goku managed to defeat them anyway, and take the Dragon Balls, so while it was a great show of support, their presence wasn't really needed. The look on their faces when Goku told them exactly what he did was priceless. A good thing to note is that Goku was only 13 when he did this, so the gang were reminded it's a good thing that Goku has a heart of gold as well his great strength.
 * In episode 15 of Kiddy Grade Eclair and Lumiere storm  after being hunted by them for the past few episodes.
 * In Naruto Shippuden, during the Sasuke and Sai arc, Team Yamato storms Orochimaru's underground hide-out to rescue Sasuke... but it fails.
 * Sasuke himself does this later with his own Quirky Miniboss Squad, storming the Five Kage Summit. He nearly dies -- five times. In order: Jugo and Suigetsu have to save his ass from Darui's Genjutsu blitz; Gaara saves him when he's about to be decapitated (or at least have his chest compressed) by A, the Raikage; then Zetsu saves him when he's nearly melted by Mei Terumi, the Mizukage; finally, Tobi saves him right as he's about to be atomized by Onoki, the Tsuchikage. It was all so satisfying when he was kicked off his high horse.
 * That's four times, and the first two doesn't count: Sasuke saw through the Genjustu and was ready for the attack (and that was Cee's doing, and later Sasuke repaid him in kind), and Gaara was more worried for the Raikage sake, seeing as the idiot still didn't notice that is arm is on fire and was about to plunge the rest of his body into the same black fire of doom while Sasuke is still protected with susanoo, which already stood against two of his direct attacks with no sign that the third will be the charm in this case.
 * The finale of the manga version of Chrono Crusade has the good guy group storming Eden, Aion's base of operations...only to get caught up in his plans to storm Pandaemonium, the demon world. The end result is two battered, small groups rushing through the defenses of several hundred demons to get to the throne room and fight each other over it.
 * Happens in Yu Yu Hakusho when Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei storm Gonzou Tarukane's stronghold to rescue Yukina.
 * Happened in Monster Rancher when Genki and the gang stormed Naga's castle, in a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Notable in that Naga was not the Big Bad of the series.
 * Happens three times in the final arc of 20th Century Boys: firstly, when and co storm the 'castle' of, and twice later on when the resistance storm Friend's tower. The second time is much easier for them seeing as how.
 * This is usually the general set up for the seasonal climax of Sailor Moon. After an entire story arc of dispatching the monster of the day and having the occasional skirmish with the Big Bad, the senshi would track down their headquarters and go to them for the final battle.
 * Soul Eater has done this twice so far. The first was the Baba Yaga Castle arc. The cast is currently in the opening stages of an attack on Noah's hideout.
 * The final arc of Fullmetal Alchemist has the cast assault.
 * In Princess Mononoke, San and her wolf "brothers" storm the heavily-fortified Irontown in order to assassinate Lady Eboshi, as retaliation for their mother, Moro, being shot by Eboshi's gunners. It works surprisingly well for San once she's over the town's walls, but she's easily trapped by Eboshi. Luckily for everyone involved there was a third actor there to untangle the mess...
 * The series finale for Kirby of the Stars.
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, Magic World arc concludes in Ala Alba with its allies (Mana, Takane, Mei, Ariadne girls and others) storming Gravekeeper's Palace.
 * Shakugan no Shana:
 * Shana and Wilhelmina storm Seireiden in the first season finale to rescue Yuji.
 * In the third season, Khamsin Nbh'w and Rebecca Reed storm it again to rescue.
 * Code Geass Lelouch and Suzaku attack the flying fortress Damocles in the finale of the second season. Another one happened in the later half of the first, with Suzaku storming the fortress of a secondary terrorist group, which ended in failure when his mecha run out of power... Until Lelouch swooped in with a spare battery and together they utterly stomped the remaining forces.
 * Castle of Cagliostro: The titular castle is stormed by Interpol troopers led by Zennigata during the final act, at the same time that Lupin puts his plan to beat the Count into action.

Comic Books

 * In Final Crisis, after months of slowly falling to Darkseid and his forces, every free superhero teams up into one huge army and storms Bludhaven, where Darkseid's main base is. Superman himself is not part of this assult, but he arrives later and storms Darkseid's actual base, the Command-D bunker, single-handily..

Fanfic

 * As of the beginning of the Bleach fic Winter War, Seireitei has been occupied by Aizen's forces for some time. Naturally, once things get underway, retaking the city is one of the heroes' first priorities. At the same time, a smaller group is sent into Hueco Mundo.
 * At the climax of The Legend of Zelda: Rings of Dualty's first act, Hyrule Castle is infiltrated by not just one faction, but two, one being . It goes pretty well thanks to lazy guards and a distraction.
 * Jewel of Darkness: The Jump City arc ends with The Starscream leading the Titans to Midnight's lair, allowing them to catch her off guard. When the battle is over,  and the base self-destructs.
 * Clan Gully and their comrades had to attack  in Grazton to   during the Grazton Arc of The Tainted Grimoire.
 * Queen of All Oni features a rare villain-on-villain example. When Evil Sorcerer Lung captures Jade's astral form and tries to torture her into serving him, her Shadowkhan Dragons Left and Right track down his fortress (with some anonymous aid from Tarakudo), and proceed to curb stomp everything he puts in their way.
 * Pops up a few times in the My Hostage Not Yours trilogy:
 * The climax of The Revenge of Player 2 occurs as Dib and Zim attack ' lair in order to save a brainwashed Gaz.
 * Twice in The Inevitable Takeover -- first, Dib and Tak lead the Group in attacking Zim's base in order to stop his wedding to Gaz. This fails, since not only does Gaz not want to be saved (and she gives Dib a pretty brutal Hannibal Lecture to prove it), but Zim completely kicks Tak's ass.

The second instance occurs at the climax, as the Swollen Eyeballs (who have forcibly drafted Dib and Tak by this point) launch a full-scale assault on Zim's European base, which happens to be an actual castle.
 * The Final Battle of My Little Avengers occurs when the Avengers sneak into Canterlot Castle to confront Loki and the Dark Avengers, who have occupied it.
 * Similarly, the first part of the Final Battle of Ponies Make War begins when the Loyalists attack the royal palace so the Mane Six can defeat Prince Empyrean as part of a larger plan to  and draw out Titan for the real Final Battle.

Film
"Miracle Max: "Have fun storming the castle!" Valerie: (quietly, to Max) "Think it'll work?" Miracle Max: (quietly, to Valerie) "It'll take a miracle." (enthusiastic again) "Bye bye!""
 * The Princess Bride, in which Westley, Inigo Montoya, and Fezzik are enthusiastically sent off by Miracle Max and his wife, Valerie, to storm Humperdinck's castle.

"Arthur: "RUN AWAAAAYYY!!!""
 * Glory climaxes with the charge at Fort Wagner.
 * The Matrix has the heroes storming a secure military building where Morpheus is being held captive.
 * Reloaded revisits the trope as Neo storms The Source.
 * Revolutions could be said to complete the trifecta, if you consider The Matrix itself Smith's castle, or if you count when they storm the Machine City.
 * Used in the middle of the story and possibly subverted (as well as inverted) in Ran when the Third Castle is caught completely by surprise.
 * Star Wars features this in almost every episode:
 * A New Hope: The Death Star, twice: once to rescue Leia, once to blow the place to bits.
 * The Empire Strikes Back: Inversion. The Imperials storm Echo Base.
 * Return Of The Jedi: The Death Star, again.
 * The Phantom Menace: The Fed battleship and Naboo Palace.
 * Attack Of The Clones: The Jedi Knights storm the Geonosian arena.
 * Revenge Of The Sith: The Invisible Hand, though this one's at the beginning. Inverted later on when the 501st storm the Jedi Temple.
 * Used realistically in Lord of the Rings. The orcs storm castles on three different occasions. The orcs only ever get as far as they do because they vastly outnumber the defenders, occasionally have superior equipment to break down barriers, and soak up a huge amount of casualties just to achieve victory. Even then, they only manage one victory and lose twice . In another instance, Frodo and Sam are the ones actually doing the storming, but all the fighting is done by the diversionary force led by Aragorn.
 * Most of the James Bond films end this way. To be more specific, Dr. No, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, The Living Daylights, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day all end with James Bond willingly gearing up and assaulting a known enemy base that very definitely contains the major villain.
 * Moonraker ends with an assault on Drax's space station by U.S. Marine astronauts with laser weapons. Bond was already inside the station when it occurred.
 * Appropriately, the Austin Powers movies follow suit: Austin Powers ends with Kensington leading British forces to Dr. Evil's lair, while the The Spy Who Shagged Me ends with Austin infiltrating Dr. Evil's moon base, and Goldmember has Austin (with a little more help) invading Dr. Evil's underwater lair.
 * The first and second X-Men movies follow the trope, while the third one inverts it.
 * In Hot Fuzz, the cops storm a grocery store.
 * Subverted in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The knights are gearing up to storm "ze outrrrrageous" French guy's castle...
 * They also attempted to storm the French Castle before going on Let's Split Up, Gang!. However... a rain of livestock caused them to...


 * Also, when Lancelot assaults the Swamp Castle. By himself.
 * Sneakers climaxes with the good guys storming a toy company. Of course,.
 * The Heroic Bloodshed film A Better Tomorrow 2 ends with the three remaining heroes going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge through a whole mess of mooks at the Big Bad's mansion.
 * In The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the Narnian forces attack the Telmarine castle. Note that this entire plot is nowhere to be found in the book.
 * Tank Girl. Tank Girl, her tank, Jet Girl and the Rippers assault the Water and Power fortress at the end of the movie.
 * This happens twice in Max Payne movie, once to get into a bad guy's stronghold and once to shoot a lot of people and maybe do something about revenge. But mostly to shoot people.
 * Near the end of Buckaroo Banzai, Buckaroo, the Hong Kong Cavaliers and a Blue Blaze Strike Team some Blue Blaze irregulars assault Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems to recover Penny Priddy and the Oscillation Overthruster from the villainous Red Lectroids.
 * The climax of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
 * The Avengers 1998. Steed and Mrs. Peel infiltrate Sir August's base in order to stop his evil plot to control the weather and end up fighting The Dragon and Sir August himself.
 * Commando. John Matrix single-handedly assaults the mansion headquarters of a crooked crime lord planning a coup in South America, slaughtering dozens of henchmen in order to rescue his kidnapped daughter.
 * In the ending of the Wanted film,
 * This is how the legend of The 47 Ronin ends, so every film version ends the same way.
 * Beverly Hills Cop has Big Bad Victor Maitland's Beverly Hills mansion as the castle, the would-be Love Interest as the Damsel in Distress, and a hilarious shootout between the heroic cops and the Mooks.
 * The Last Castle is actually an interesting reversal of the trope. The titular castle is a metaphor for a US military prison, and the entire plot is centered around the prisoners storming the castle from within in order to take it.
 * This is the premise of a splendid battle sequence in the 1958 Kirk Douglas vehicle The Vikings.
 * At the end of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Farmer storms the Big Bad's fortress to kill him and rescue his wife... alone, with the king's army and a magus providing distractions. Why? Because he's Jason Statham, that's why!
 * He gets in through an unguarded air shaft at the top, because nobody would think of building a rope bridge or go in Batman-style, right?
 * Subverted and then played straight in Timeline. The French arrive to Castleguard prepared for a year-long siege, exchanging arrows and siege weapon fire with the English. Then Gerard Butler's character blows a hole to the catacombs, allowing the French general and a dozen men to storm the castle from inside. They manage to open the gates, allowing the French army to enter. While, the end result is known, as lampshaded at the beginning of the movie, the battle is still on as the main characters are returning to their own time.
 * At the end of Bad Boys II, the titular bad boys and a team of volunteers storm the Big Bad's mansion in Cuba to rescue Marcus's sister and Mike's girlfriend (same person). They have to hurry, though, as the drug lord has friends in the Cuban government, who will send the Cuban army after them.
 * We see this about four times in Sin City. Two of those instances occur in the same story.
 * Marv geared up to storm the Farm in order to kill Kevin. A couple scenes later, he's heading to Cardinal Roark's mansion.
 * Hartigan storms the same Farm in order to kill the Yellow Bastard.
 * Dwight and the Old Town girls subvert this by luring the mob out of their building, into the alley out back before attackign them.
 * At the end of Scarface Sosa's mook army storms Tony Montana's mansion.
 * In Big Trouble in Little China, Jack and Wang Chi drink Egg Shen's magic potion and lead a group of warriors in an attack on Lo Pan's underground lair before he marries their girlfriends as part of an evil ritual.
 * Willow, Krull, Legend. Basically every 80s fantasy movie was required to end this way.
 * Prince of Persia the Sands of Time opens with the Persian army storming a fortified city. It's a subversion, however, because Dastan notes that his brother, who's leading the charge, is an idiot who only knows how to attack from the front and would have sacrificed a lot of soldiers just to get inside. Dastan instead sneaks over a poorly guarded wall with his small group and opens the gates on that side, allowing the army in with a minimum of casualties.
 * Happens at the climax of all three Blade movies (except the first, where Blade fails and is captured; the Final Battle happens elsewhere)
 * Hero: The King of Qin fears that everyone is out to get him. He's right. We eventually get a flashback to when a battle-couple tried to kill him. By cutting right through his army and storming his palace, by themselves. To awesome music. Observe.
 * Double subverted in His Kind of Woman: the hero's single-handed attempt to Storm the Yacht and does not go well at all, with him being captured by the crew within minutes of getting on board. The second attempt, which has police assistance, goes somewhat better.
 * Cars 2 first did this with an oil rig in the Pacific Ocean, and later on with a casino in Italy.

Literature
"Two Fire Herb: "We must storm the Winter Palace!"
 * Robert Jordan seems to like this as much as George Lucas, because The Wheel of Time does it a lot:
 * Book 2: Falme.
 * Book 3: The Stone of Tear.
 * Book 5: Caemlyn.
 * Book 7: Illian. Subverted when Sammael runs away, and Rand has to follow him to Shadar Logoth.
 * Book 11: The Shaido camp at Malden.
 * Wizards First Rule, the first book of the Sword of Truth series, has the protagonists storming the villain's castle toward the end. Played with the twist that the villain, who believes himself invincible, lets them walk right in the front door.
 * The climax of the Elenium trilogy by David Eddings has Sparhawk and company storming an evil temple, in the final battle of their war against the dark god Azash.
 * The storming of the pool ship at the end of Animorphs.
 * In the third book of the Tripods series, the kids attack the masters by storming and destroying two of their cities, after paralyzing the masters with alcohol.(the third fails)
 * And they do it again in a city with a temple in the Tamuli trilogy to rescue Queen Ehlana and Alean.
 * S.M. Stirling's post-apocalypse Emberverse novels feature some castle-storming, but in a subversion it's far more common for both the heroes and villains to do everything they can to avoid storming the other side's castles, because such attacks are so dangerous and time-consuming.
 * In Dies the Fire, local good guys unfamiliar with the idea of a castle send two hundred men against a hilltop abby manned by a gang allied to Norman Arminger, who is very familiar with castles. The good guys lose twenty dead and over a hundred badly hurt to zero gain. Subsequent attacks fail at the "find anyone who wants to do this" stage...
 * In the third book of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles, the main character Uhtred and his adopted brother Ragnar storm Dunholm, the fortress of a rival Danish lord named Kjartan, who killed Ragnar's father about six years prior. This is one instance of a Storming the Castle happening before the story's climax, as the actual climax involves Uhtred duelling another rival and coming to a truce with said rival's army and the army of the king he supports.
 * In William King's Warhammer 40000 Space Wolf novel Wolfblade, when they discover was behind an assassination attempt, they raid his asteroid.
 * In CS Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan, Lucy, and Susan do not go to aid Peter and the army, but storm the White Witch's castle, to restore to life the statues inside. (Aslan suggested Peter have a plan to storm the castle in case the Witch decided to fall back to her castle instead of committing to an open battle after killing him.)
 * In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Deus Sanguinius, Rafen gets on the outside of a shuttle going to the spaceship to inflitrate it. He is the only loyal Blood Angel left, and the ship, which should have been a refuge, is enemy ground.
 * In Interesting Times:

Lotus Blossom: "Excuse me, Two Fire Herb, but it is June."

Two Fire Herb: "Then we can storm the Summer Palace!""


 * Torquilstone in Ivanhoe.
 * In Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
 * Happens in pretty much every Redwall book where the villain builds or steals themselves a looming castle fortress from which to rule the landscape. Examples include Terramort (Mariel of Redwall), Marshank (Martin the Warrior) and Castle Floret (The Bellmaker) Most of the other books have assorted villains trying to storm either Redwall Abbey or Salamandastron. Subversions include the Kingdom of Malkaniss, an underground fortress, and Kotir, which was flooded and destroyed with siege weaponry instead of stormed.
 * The Dresden Files: Proven Guilty ends with Harry, Murphy, Charity and Thomas storming Queen Mab's castle in Faerie . Subverted in that
 * While not always a castle, several other books end with Harry and company raiding the Supervillain Lair, including  in Grave Peril,   Small Favors,   in White Night, and   in Changes.
 * In Frank Herbert's Dune, after the Harkonnens pull an All Your Base Are Belong to Us, Paul gathers the Fremen and storms the city of Arrakeen using a giant sandworm and atomics (in the film). Many examples follow in later Dune novels.
 * Many examples in The History of the Galaxy, a major one being the desperate assault of the Free Colonies' fleet against the heavily fortified Solar System. The only reason it succeeds is because the admiral in charge of the Earth Alliance defense shuts down most of the robotic systems right before the assault, reasoning that the rebels must succeed for humanity to survive (since he's killed in battle, this is a Heroic Sacrifice). Otherwise, the assault was doomed to fail. Interestingly, the author doesn't focus much on the battle itself but on the consequences, particularly for a young Earth Alliance pilot who has to learn to live in a galaxy controlled by the newly-created Confederacy of Suns, where people from Earth are looked at in disdain.
 * In Robert E. Howard's "A Witch Shall Be Born", Olgerd says he can't besiege the city and Conan promises to draw them out for the fight.
 * In the post-Apocalypse novel Malevil, Emmanuel and his men make preparations to besiege the lightly-fortified village of La Roque to overthrow the despot priest Fulbert..
 * In Death: Eve and Roarke storm Icove's underground chambers in Origin In Death quite impressively.
 * In Warrior Cats, the characters will, on rare occasions, attack another Clan's camp instead of just fighting somewhere in the territory. This can be risky, though, as the home Clan knows the best way to defend it, will be fighting more fiercely and desperately to protect the defenseless kits and elders, and the raiding Clan is usually outnumbered. It's worked about as often as it has failed.

Live Action TV

 * Alias. Just the whole series. Put on a brand new dress, storm a brand new castle/secret lab/secret base/locked room/other thing. Every week. Lather, rinse, repeat. Except when you or some other guy is attacking your castle, of course.
 * The Firefly episode "War Stories" sees the crew busting Mal out of a psychotic crime lord's space station.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer features this most notably in Season 7, where the Scoobies and Potentials charge into Sunnydale High, home of the Hellmouth, and finally bust the Hellmouth open, charging through to fight The First's army head-on.
 * Other notable instances of Storming the Castle are the assault on Glory's ramshackle base with every MacGuffin they could scrounge together and the incursion into the Initiative base.
 * There's also Buffy storming Angelus' mansion in the season 2 finale.
 * The very first episode of Angel had Angel storming Russell Winter's mansion to . He later stormed the Wolfram and Hart building a number of times, including once to kill a Senior Parter in Reprise. Angel and his gang later stormed their own base, the Hyperion Hotel, to stop the Big Bad   at the end of season 4. At the end of season 2, Wesley and Gunn lead a storming of an actual castle.
 * Star Trek has some good examples of this. Notables include:
 * Star Trek: The Next Generation ep, Best of Both Worlds features the Enterprise crew boarding the Borg cube twice.
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, when they storm their own station to take it back.
 * A good example also includes Jadzia Dax and three old Klingon Dahar masters (all of whom faced Kirk decades prior and survived) storming the compound of the Albino. Two of them don't make it, which is just fine for a Klingon.
 * Star Trek: Enterprise in Zero Hour when they board the Xindi Death Star to attempt to destroy it.
 * In Chuck, quite a few episodes have climaxes with a storming of the criminal's lair, usually to save Chuck.
 * Power Rangers enjoys doing this, though nowhere near as much as it does All Your Base Are Belong to Us.
 * Mighty Morphin' Season 3: Tommy infiltrates Zedd's base to save Kat and retrieve the Falconzord.
 * In Space features two instances, the first doomed to failure since its mid-season, while in the second the Red Ranger goes in for the final fight on his own while the rest of his team prevents their enemies from All Your Basing Angel Grove.
 * Lightspeed Rescue has the Red Ranger go in to save his kidnapped teammates, doing mass damage in the process. Four episodes later, the few remaining villains invade the Rangers' base.
 * Ninja Storm has 99% of the population of multiple ninja academies kidnapped at season start, and near its end, Cam tries to rescue them and is forced to retreat. In the finale proper, Cam himself is grabbed by Lothor; the Thunder Rangers go to save him and rescue the other ninjas as well.
 * Dino Thunder sees Tommy abducted early on, and the Rangers come to rescue him. The finale involves another invasion of Mesogog's base.
 * Mystic Force: Midseason, The Mentor and two Plucky Comic Relief characters are the ones to infiltrate the Underworld.
 * Jungle Fury has possibly the best uses of this trope in the franchise. The first instance happens halfway through the season when the Rangers' masters get kidnapped and used as energy batteries, so the Wolf Ranger and his father rush in to save them. The second instance involves the Red Ranger, who feels guilty for his own small role in the villain possessing a fellow kung fu student, entering the enemy base in broad daylight and just wreaking complete havoc.
 * In Burn Notice, this happens about every other episode. Sometimes it happens near the beginning of the episode, because Michael needs to get the bad guy's attention in a major way. Sometimes it happens at the end of the episode, especially when Michael needs to rescue Fi or Sam. Either way, it always works, because Michael Weston is the man.
 * Battlestar Galactica: Nothing says "Grand Finale" like a massive Cylon doom fortress hidden in an Asteroid Thicket in orbit around a black hole.
 * Edge of Darkness: Parodied when the infiltrators stop in the middle of the raid to enjoy a three course meal, with fine wine, cigars and classical music.
 * Naturally done a few times in Sharpe, particularly with the great Spanish fortress cities of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. The novels add some more, like the sieges of Seringapatam and Gawilghur in India.
 * In the Stargate SG-1 season 3 premiere, "Into the Fire", SG-3, -5, -6, and -11 storm Hathor's fortress to rescue SG-1. But they get cut off, then captured on their way back out.
 * The ultimate goal in Takeshi's Castle which failed in almost every episode.

Theater

 * Older Than Steam: Macbeth ends with a castle storm. Of course, since we have ourselves a Villain Protagonist, he's the one inside when it all falls down.

Video Games

 * Super Mario Galaxy,
 * Bully, in the mission named...StormingTheCastle. You launch a one-man assault on the heavily-fortified Observatory that serves as the base of the Nerd faction, breaking through several lines of defense, including a tripod-mounted, double-barreled, electrically-powered Spud Cannon, and finally blast in the heavily-armored gates to bust into the core and take out their leader, Earnest. Considering that the system was, apparently, designed to withstand an assault from the entire football team (the Jocks faction is the natural enemies of the Nerds), this is quite impressive.
 * Its ability to stand up to such an assault is later proven when you assist in its defense from the Jocks after putting indecent pictures of the head cheerleader all over town.
 * Final Fantasy VII: Assaulting the Shinra Building, the most awesome stretch of the game. Later in the game, you storm the city itself, and can revisit the Shinra Building, but this bit's only necessary if you want one character's ultimate weapon.
 * Final Fantasy II: You storm the Emperor's castle... which is hidden within a Cyclone and can only be reached via flying dragon.
 * Final Fantasy VI: In order to stop the insane megalomaniac from dieing of boredom, your party splits into three groups and storm his Evil Tower of Ominousness in a three-pronged attack from your airship.
 * Final Fantasy VIII: You storm a flying battle-academy, and later on you storm a sky-scraper sized landing beacon for moon monsters.
 * Final Fantasy IX: You fly your airship into Memoria, going head to head with an army of dragons, when The Cavalry arrives in the form of an airship fleet that shows up and blasts most of the dragons to pieces. And it is awesome in every way.
 * Final Fantasy X: To rescue a kidnapped member of the group, the rest of the characters use an airship to storm the fortress-city Bevelle, guarded with robotic guards, warrior monks with flamethrowers, and a dragon.
 * Final Fantasy XII: While the Rebel Fleet diverts attention, you storm the Sky Fortress Bahamut and break your way through (literally) endless hordes of enemies on your way to the Big Bad.
 * The middle part of the Ryusei route of Super Robot Wars Original Generation has the Hagane storming Divine Crusaders Headquarters to end the Divine War.
 * Freedom Fighters plays this twice: first you infiltrate the Soviet base at Governor's Island and assassinate General Tatarin, then you and your entire rebellion storm the base, kick major butt, and raise the Stars-and-Stripes on the fortress.
 * The Grand Theft Auto series plays this one quite a lot, usually twice:
 * GTA III: Luigi's strip club, then Catalina's base.
 * Vice City:, then   tries to pull the same on your house in a Shout-Out to Scarface.
 * San Andreas: the cops do this to your motel, then you do this on crack house.
 * Grand Theft Auto IV and its expansions do this a lot. In the main game, you get to storm 's club, and then at the end the abandoned casino where is hiding. The Lost And Damned has the Lost storming the clubhouse of their rivals, the Hell's Angels Angels of Death and ends with an assault on . The Ballad Of Gay Tony has the tables turned on you, as  storm Tony's nightclub in the penultimate mission.
 * The very first mission in Deus Ex involves breaking into The Statue of Liberty. More typically, the last was an assault on the Big Bad's underground bunker at Area 51.
 * All three acts of Max Payne end with the title character Storming the Castle.
 * Act One has Max storming Ragna Rock, Jack Lupino's hideout, in order to take down the owner.
 * Act Two has him storming the Punchinello manor in order to take down the crimelord he deems responsible for Alex's murder.
 * The final act has Max taking the battle directly to Nicole Horne's doorstep, the Aesir building, in order to make her answer for what happened to his family.
 * Also, at one point, he storms a boat. It Makes Sense in Context.
 * Mass Effect has one mission on Virmire that involves staging a two-pronged assault on Saren's research base to deliver a nuclear warhead.
 * And earlier on, the assault on Chora's Den, to shoot interrogate Fist. Notable in that it works, rare in an example from early on in the story, and that Fist isn't the Big Bad. (Far from it.)
 * The climax involves storming your castle after the Big Bad storms it, as said castle is key to his plans.
 * The "suicide mission" in Mass Effect 2 is a textbook example of Storming the Castle.
 * Many missions in Mass Effect 2 are, actually. Grunt's recruitment mission, Tali's recruitment mission and loyalty mission, Samara's recruitment mission, Garrus' loyalty mission...And a lot of the ones that aren't are you holding a position against a bunch of enemies trying this.
 * Also Legion's loyalty mission, except the goal is to sneak in using the Normandy's stealth systems.
 * Near the end of Mass Effect 3, you do this to
 * Half Life 2: A mute theoretical physicist storms the Torture Cellar prison Nova Prospekt with a multi-ethnic Wrench Wench Action Girl and an army of infinite cannon fodder alien insects. And it's still one of the toughest two levels in the game.
 * Don't forget the Big Bad's stronghold itself, which comprises of the last level or so.
 * Done repeatedly throughout the Halo series.
 * In Halo: Combat Evolved, the Castle was the Covenant cruiser Truth and Reconciliation to rescue Captain Keyes.
 * The Control Room was decidedly more castle-esque than The Truth and Reconciliation.
 * In Halo 2, it happens three times; assaulting Regret's temple, assaulting the Library, and then a very special case of assaulting the government towers of High Charity, starting from the inside.
 * It goes even crazier in Halo 3, which involves assaulting a Covenant-controlled city, followed by storming a Flood-controlled cruiser, then storming the communications relay held by Truth's remaining forces, and then storming the Flood-controlled High Charity.
 * Also used in Marathon when you have to assault the citadel.
 * Pretty much every mission in the Crusader games, though the exact reasons vary.
 * The Wild Arms series typically has an assault on the enemy's HQ in the middle of the game, with The Very Definitely Final Dungeon being somewhere more impressive.
 * Wild Arms 1 has the attack on the Photosphere.
 * Wild Arms 2 has you attacking the Heimdal Gazzo at the end of Disc 1.
 * Wild Arms 3 has you taking down the Yggdrasil and Deus Ex Machina in the end of Chapters 2 and 3, respectively.
 * Wild Arms 4 has you storming the Garra de Leon to rescue a comrade.
 * Tales of Symphonia has the assault upon  It...sort of works, I guess...
 * It works very well for the bad guys.
 * Tales of Hearts did the same thing. About halfway through, the heroes chase the Big Bad into the Forest of Thorns Mobile Crystal Castle Cendrillion, but get curb-stomped by him and his Guardian Knight and get coerced into activating it for him, which was his entire goal. Ouch.
 * The second half of Freelancer is essentially one string of Castle Storms after another. First, you attack Governor Tekagi's fortress to retrieve the Proteus Tome. Then you attack a secret Rheinland shipyard with battleships under construction, guarded by seven capital ships. Then you attack a secret jail in the Alaska system guarded by the entire LSF. Then you attack a Nomad installation to retrieve a power cell. The game ends with an attack on the home world system, complete with Dyson sphere.
 * Sadly overshadowed predecessor Starlancer has several missions that could fit the trope, even if you only count the ones where your task is to run interference for a boarding party and/or a cargo lifter trying to gain entry to the target, as opposed to simply blowing it up.
 * This is pretty much the whole premise of the original Homeworld, with the player's faction experiencing it from both sides at various points. The Great Nebula missions possibly constitute a semi-inversion.
 * In each main incarnation of the Pokémon games, your character storms the headquarters of the region's villainous organization. This happens roughly halfway through the storyline.
 * The Star Wars: Dark Forces series is all about storming bases. Be it Imperial battle cruisers, smuggler's hideouts, Sith temples or criminal kingpin outposts, you name it, you'll storm it.
 * Same goes for the Knights of the Old Republic games, with the most impressive stormings being the Star Forge and Malachor.
 * The temple of Freedon Nadd on Dxun and the storming of the Onderon palace also come readily to mind. Oh yeah, and they happen at the same time.
 * Seeing as most Fire Emblem games start with your main character being driven from their castle and kingdom, one can expect lots of literal Storming the Castle missions to take back the throne in each game. However, these examples are rarely The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
 * The Legend of Zelda:
 * Reaching the conclusion of Twilight Princess requires Link to break into Hyrule Castle, which has been sealed in a mystic golden diamond. Once the diamond is removed, he has to fight King Bulblin to get a Small Key, then almost bites it via ambush but is saved by the arrival of some unexpected allies. Then he has to make his way up the castle to the throne room for two of the three final battles. And before all of that, he has first to storm the Palace of Twilight in order to search for Zant.
 * In The Wind Waker, when Link storms the Forsaken Fortress at the start of the game, again at the middle, and later on.
 * A Link To The Past has Link doing this right after starting the game with nothing but a sword and shield. Then he has to do it a second time.
 * Ape Escape and its sequels tend to use this trope whenever Specter's hideout is revealed.
 * Kirby games generally have at least one level (or several) that involves storming King Dedede's castle single-handedly.
 * Kirby Super Star's "The Revenge of Meta Knight" features Kirby storming an airship, which is large and complex enough to be considered a flying castle in and of itself.
 * Sonic Adventure 2 have a minor version of this, as both stories involve somebody invading Prison Island (in the Hero one, Tails to save Sonic; in the Dark one, Eggman/Robotnik to get Shadow, and later Rouge to steal Chaos Emeralds).
 * The endgame for Sonic Unleashed has Sonic, Tails and Chip storming Eggmanland, a continent-sized city.
 * Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Soulstorm metamap campaigns are completed by attacking every enemy faction's stronghold territory and conquering it. Admittedly they have elements of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, as the opponent starts in an understandably far superior position than your force.
 * The older turn based game, Warhammer 40000 Chaos Gate, has the player assaulting several chaos fortresses. The last one is located in the Eye of Terror.
 * Quite a few missions from Irrational Games' Freedom Force and Freedom Force Versus the Third Reich.
 * Gears of War 2 has this happen, but it's not The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. The achievement you get for the act lampshades this trope.
 * Tales of Vesperia has the storming of.
 * Castlevania: Technically all of them. It's kind of the point of the series. But this trope really only applies to when Dracula's castle is the last level, like in Simon's Quest and Order of Ecclesia.
 * Super Mario Bros., especially in the original. Shame it was the wrong one every time.
 * Except for the last one.
 * In fact, all the RPG's use this as The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, except Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, where this happens in the one-to-last chapter. In Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time and Bowser's Inside Story, this overlaps with All Your Base Are Belong to Us, since the villains are pretty much homeless at the beginning of the game.
 * To rescue Peach in Super Mario XP, Mario must storm Bowser's castle. It might be difficult because of the many obstacles and enemies he faces along the way.
 * The third mission from the end of the game in Mega Man Star Force 3 has Geo, Sonia, A.C. Eos, their wizards and 6 random Satella Police Officers decide to take the fight to the dealers. This attack begins by Goodal sending Geo on a recon mission to locate their base of operations and ends with Joker exploding taking A.C. Eos with him, and Heartless and Mr. King escaping to another base.
 * In fact, this actually applies to many (but not all) Mega Man games, especially the Mega Man series.
 * In The Godfather: The Game, you will have to attack and take over the warehouses, hubs and compounds of the other four families. As the trope suggests, you will have a harder time with these than with normal shops and rackets.
 * Inverted in Dragon Age, where Shale the golem bids you farewell just before the final mission with "Have fun storming the castle" despite the mission being a prime example of All Your Base Are Belong to Us.
 * Your objective is to storm a castle, after all.
 * In the penultimate level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,.
 * A few missions earlier, in Whiskey Hotel, you have to storm the occupied, and light signal flares on the roof before the Air Force bombs the area to Hell.
 * Played completely straight where Task Force 141 storms an actual Russian Castle used as a gulag.
 * In the second to last level of the first game, the joint SAS and USMC forces storm a hijacked Russian nuclear missile silo.
 * Done literally in Mount and Blade. You can either besiege a castle for thirty days and wait for the defenders to starve out, or you can simply charge the walls and take it for yourself.
 * Notable in that it is more or less the only way to take castles, unless you enjoy being a sadist. Yes, they provide you with the siege option, but by the time the 30 days are up, your army will be either starved or deserting (or starved AND deserting). Apparently, recruits in the world of Mount&Blade get exceptionally depressed at being told to sit down and peacefully wait out a siege from a safe distance. It's also worth noting that sieging simply does not work- even after 30 days of tedium the enemy will STILL continue to thumb their noses at your demand that they surrender. So get over those walls, lad!
 * World of Warcraft consists largely of storming castles with other players in the form of instance dungeons. Not all of these are actual castles or fortresses, but most are home base to some kind of bad guy.
 * Some solo quest chains include a castle storming phase.
 * A variant on this is to attack the opposite faction's capitol and kill their leader. Killing all of the enemy's leaders awards a unique mount.
 * Most of the levels in Bungie's Oni are Storming the Castle scenarios, especially after.
 * In Heroes of Might and Magic, the only way to win (at least in most scenarios) is to capture all the other players' castles through direct assault.
 * Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, ends with you not only storming the Siegfried Line, but also clearing a bunker, a network of trenches, a bridge, and finally destroying a pair of V2 rockets, all while Flak 88s fire at you, first from far away, then from the other side of the bridge.
 * Stronghold. You are either storming a castle, or building a castle that can withstand a direct assault.
 * In the Total War series, particularly Rome, defending a castle is often trivially easy, and a force of only a few squads can potentially hold off hundreds of organised attackers. Unfortunately, due to the enemy AI, assaulting a castle is often more a case of knowing which bugs to exploit than actual skill. Althuogh if you do try a good old fashioned head on castle assault it will certainly be heavy on casualties.
 * In the latest installment, Total War: Shogun 2, a castle can be defended from a full-sized army by an ashigaru (armed peasant) force half their number. This is often because a number of the attacking units will be cavalry, which are utterly useless when assaulting castles, at least the way the AI does it (wait until all infantry are dead or routing, then run to the castle and dismount). Archers on the battlements are heavily protected from incoming arrows, while the same cannot be said for the attacking archers. The standard way to storm a castle is for infantry to climb the walls, during which time they are extremely vulnerable to arrows and defending infantry. The AI never seems to try to destroy the gates and come in this way.
 * Automatically resolving the battle will usually lead to less casualties since the AI is more efficient at storming the castle.
 * Nearly every Touhou game, sometimes literally:
 * Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Player character storms the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
 * Perfect Cherry Blossom: Player character storms the afterlife.
 * Imperishable Night: The player team storms the elusive Eientei.
 * Mountain of Faith: Player character storms the titular mountain where Kanako's shrine resides.
 * Subterranean Animism: Player character storms an abandoned hell.
 * Undefined Flying Object: Player character storms the titular airship.
 * Ten Desires: Player character storms... a mausoleum. It's more epic than it sounds.
 * In the Grand Route of Girls Love Visual Novel Aoi Shiro, Syouko and Nami storm the titular Blue Castle, which counts as To Hell and Back.
 * The final mission in Silent Storm is to storm the headquarters with a squad of six. Most levels also include storming some sort of fortress.
 * In Robin Hood the Legend of Sherwood, you have to assault several castles, belonging to nobles loyal to Prince John. Usually, with the help of allied armies.
 * While the first Bangai-O game is entirely spent around wrecking the Cosmo Gang's space stations and whatnot, the storming of their HQ (at the last level, naturally) fits this the most.
 * The Witcher 2 begins with a castle-storming segment, with Geralt serving as The Dragon for the attacking king. To the game's credit, it manages to justify the reason for the storm (the king needs to rescue some high-value noble hostages from the castle, who also happen to be his own children), and the king came prepared: Heavy siege weapons and war machines were employed prior to the storming, as well as a comprehensive battle plan and the attackers heavily outnumbering the defenders. Geralt also mentions that the siege towers and all the running about on the castle walls was mostly just the nobles showing off: The decisive battle was fought by the levy infantry and mercenaries on ground level, and was apparently a bloodbath for both sides.
 * Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is basically a one-man version of this, as the Prince infiltrates the Island of Time and proceeds to tear down the entire fortress one chamber at a time.
 * Fallout: New Vegas ends with an all-out assault on either Hoover Dam or the Legate's Camp
 * Call of Duty World at War the final American mission is to storm Shuri Castle. And the final Russian mission is to storm the Reichstag.
 * To beat the game in The Adventures of Robin Hood you need to get inside castle and kill the sheriff and his henchmen.
 * in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the climax of the Alduin and Civil War main quests involves storming the fane of Skuldafn to get to the portal to Sovngarde, and the siege of Solitude or Windhelm, respectively. Skuldafn is just you (and maybe any of your summons) versus a horde of draugr and a few dragons, while the sieges are you with the army of your choice.
 * At the end of Metroid Prime 3, Samus and the entire Galactic Federation does this to, in order to get rid of the Phazon menace once and for all.
 * Something series:
 * Mario has to storm the Chateaus at the end of each world in Something. They even get an Elemental Theme Naming.
 * Luigi gets to storm DDDark Castle in Something Else. Luigi even gets to fight a Dark Matter-possessed Dedede at the end.

Webcomics

 * Used several times in Sluggy Freelance, most notably in the story arcs "Vampires," "Dangerous Days," and "That Which Redeems."
 * Order of the Stick opens with the titular heroes heading into the Dungeon of Dorukan to defeat an evil lich. In fact, this was the original concept before things got complicated. Later, Xykon has to invade his old tower to win it back from the good creatures that took over in his absence.
 * A couple of arcs later, after getting Drunk with Power from his/her, Vaarsuvius attacks Xykon's newest fortress in an attempt to defeat him by him/herself.
 * Girl Genius. Or rather, tricking the guards into thinking you're a new prisoner being sent there as punishment, only to storm the castle from the inside.
 * "Good Evening. This is a diversion."
 * The Dogs of war and their french employers assault and storm a well defended airbase in the first chapter of Cry Havoc

Web Original

 * Jonas suggests this strategy in the Lonelygirl15 episode "Storm The Castle," but in the end they use a different tactic.
 * The later raid on Pleasant Manor could be counted as a (narrowly) successful castle-storming.
 * The Mad Scientist Wars had one of these in Chapter 11, as a threefold plan. Group One pretended to join over, offering someone as a fake bribe, Group Two sneaked in and sabotaged security, and Group Three just charged the gates and blew things the hell up. At least, that was the idea-- Group One failed, though the other two more or less succeeded. Then, the chapter's Big Bad, an evil robotic arm, used his master stroke, and everything went to hell.
 * Associated Space has several variations on this trope, from Fatebane sneaking into the Executive Mansion to give a mysterious box to the President, to Fatebane rescuing David from his own wedding, to.
 * On the ninth day of Survival of the Fittest version four, . This eventually comes to a head when.

Western Animation

 * Avatar: The Last Airbender has the heroes and a small army of allies invade the Fire Nation in "The Day of Black Sun."
 * "The Earth King" has the four heroes breaking into the heavily-defended Royal Palace of Ba Sing Se in about four minutes.
 * In the Grand Finale, the Order of the White Lotus storms Ba Sing Se with only about thirty men and liberates it from the occupying army.
 * Essentially a foregone conclusion though, since those six were all Badass Grandpas.
 * And also helped by two of those B.A.G's being juiced up by Sozin's Comet.
 * In what may have been meant to be the last episode of Birdman, Birdman and Falcon Seven finally track the Nebulous Evil Organization F.E.A.R. to their base in the Andes, at which point Birdman and Avenger single-handedly storm the place.
 * Samurai Jack storms Aku's castle in the pilot movie, and has been known to storm other castles belonging to blind archers, gargoyles, water spirits, and others.
 * In The Venture Brothers, Spider Skull Island was once a bad guy base until Team Venture captured it. The original owner fled and attempted to initiate a self destruct, but it failed due to faulty hardware.
 * Done twice in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003). The first occurs in "Return to New York", where the turtles storm Foot HQ in order to kill The Shredder, and the second in "Enter the Dragons," where the turtles and a shitload of allies storm The Demon Shredder's keep in order to kill him.
 * In Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes Captain America, Bucky and the Howling Commandos storm the Red Skull's castle.

Real Life

 * Towards the end of World War One, the British fought the Germans back to the Hindenburg defense positions: a network of barbed wire, gun positions etc. which made the Somme defense, against which the British had struggled for four months and generally suffered greatly, look like a joke. They were intended to be a line on which Germany could hold the British indefinitely, thus enabling peace negotiations from a position of strength. A castle, at least in strategic and symbolic terms, if there ever was one. The British cut through it in three days.
 * This was also the Pacific Theater during World War II for the most part, as it generally involved amphibious landings on well-fortified and bitterly defended islands and atolls all the way up until they got to Okinawa, nearly all of which suffered tremendous casualties. They were all stepping stones on the way to eventually invade Japan, an operation that was projected to last another 2 to 3 years and expected to lose over a million casualties. This is perhaps the reason why the Marines raising the flag at Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima is considered the Corps' Crowning Moment of Awesome (among many), because it evokes the fall of an enemy castle and signals triumph (though there were still about 6 more months before the war would end).
 * A million dead was the conservative estimate, and even then they'd badly underestimated the Japanese.
 * Which is one reason why Truman went ahead with the plan to drop Little Boy and Fat Man.
 * A fun fact relating to this: The United States has not minted a single Purple Heart since 1945. The ones they've been handing out since then are the ones they prepared for the invasion of Japan that never happened. They still aren't halfway through their stock.
 * This also also happened when the Allies broke through the Siegfried Line near the end of WWII in order to get into Germany.
 * Also the cutting of the Channel Wall on D-Day and the earlier cutting of the Mareth Line in Tunisia.
 * The Battle of Seelowe Hights was basically the Red Army's attempts to storm the last fortified barrier between itself and Berlin. They didn't do as well as most of the above examples, but they eventually did it. Berlin itself probably counts as an example.
 * Look up a little island called Malta. Then look up 'Siege of Malta, 1565'. This trope rarely happens in real life for a very, very good reason.
 * During the Battle of Actium, Julius Caesar wisely recognized this trope, so he avoided it on purpose by building a castle around a castle. His enemies tried to storm his siege wall multiple times and failed, eventually surrendering.
 * During the Battle of Chapultepec, Mexican forces were made to defend the military school, which was based on the Chapultepec castle, against the American invaders.