Game Of Thrones: Ranking Every Major Battle From Worst To Best

4. The Battle Of King's Landing

Game of Thrones is an anti-war story, but it's never quite shown the sheer horrors of it like in the penultimate episode of the entire series, The Bells. If there's a running theme throughout the episode, it is quite simply and literally 'war is hell'.

Directed, as many of the best battles are, by Miguel Sapochnik, the Battle of King's Landing (official name TBC) is a spectacular visual feast: the effects and art departments are working at the very top of their respective games here, and from the fury of the fire raining down upon King's Landing and its residents to the walls and buildings coming crashing down, it's an epic in the truest sense of the word.

But where this battle truly excels isn't in the sky, but on the ground. It's in the tough decisions facing the foot soldiers. It's in the cacophony of noise, the screams of terror, the look of panic, the sheer hell that is breaking loose all around them, the world crashing down upon the innocent smallfolk who are powerless to do anything other than simply try to survive. Seen largely through the eyes of Arya Stark, including some great tracking shots, it's one last reminder that war isn't something to be glorified. It is hell, and this battle brilliantly, horribly encapsulates that.

[JH]