Sun Tzu and Entertainment: The Land Before Time’s “Easy Route”

By Andrew Nickerson

Many classics have achieved long-lasting fame/influence, but it’s hard to find any such document with the track record of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a masterpiece that’s been the text on tactics/strategy for 2,000+ years. In its pages can be found the blueprints for victory, the lone goal of any war, and all set out in a no-nonsense fashion that’s been the hallmark/bane of generals ever since it was first published. After all, as has been said before, “If you listen to Sun Tzu, if you follow his principles, you will be victorious; if you ignore him, you do so at your own peril, because you will definitely lose.”¹ Amazingly, this same advice is also universal, with all manner of people successfully applying it to everything from business to politics to sports; it’s also become a staple of military academies around the world.

However, despite all its amazing success, there’s one sector Sun Tzu has curiously never been applied to: pop culture plotlines. It’s an odd omission, since this is probably the greatest place for his knowledge to expand upon, given how it’s still relatively untouched, and perfect fertile ground to exhibit how all-reaching this knowledge truly is. To showcase what I mean, we’ll use it to examine a key story arc from the children’s classic The Land Before Time²—the so-called “Easy Route”. Furthermore, we’ll focus on the most prevalent Sun Tzu elements: morality, terrain, recklessness, cowardice, anger, and delicacy of honor.

Here’s the background: in prehistoric times, food has begun to grow scarce, so herbivorous dinosaurs have begun a string of long migrations to the west, searching for a reputed haven of lush green known as the Great Valley. One such trek is being made by the protagonists, a group of young dinosaurs, all newly orphaned/separated from their families: parasolophus Ducky, stegosaurus Spike, pterodactyl Petrie, and triceratops Cera. They’re led by Little Foot (LF from now on), a gentle brontosaurus still reeling from the death of his mother, who gave her life to save him from a T-Rex. Despite this, he’s shown remarkable resilience, his kindness allowing him to work well with others. What’s more, his late mother taught him to follow “the bright circle (the sun) to where it touches the ground (the west)”, as well as gave him a series of landmarks to follow.

Unfortunately, the journey proves arduous, the group struggling with everything from finding food to dodging predators, and tension soon begins to build despite their progress. It comes to a head when they crest a hill and find only a decrepit landscape before them, causing Cera to snap. She suddenly declares she’s leaving so she can take the “easy route”, a stunning violation of three of Sun Tzu’s Five Fatal Failings of Leadership: a hasty temper (anger from now on), delicacy of honor, and recklessness, namely the latter’s most dangerous form—impulsivity.³ Sadly, it’s nothing new for her, considering her pride and short temper have a long history of causing problems. For example, earlier she tried to cross a chasm separating her from her parents, ignoring LF’s advice/suggestion they work together, the latter act a great example of one of Sun Tzu’s Five Factors to be mastered for victory, morality.⁴ Instead, Cera ignored him and, violating another victory factor, terrain,⁵ clumsily slid all the way to the bottom of the chasm. Naturally, she violated the delicacy of honor and impulsivity again by pretending she didn’t need help…and only just barely avoided being killed by the same T-Rex who killed LF’s mother. 

LF tries to warn her it’s the wrong way, according to his mother’s advice, which is when Cera violates morality, delicacy of honor, and impulsivity again when she snarkily replies, “Well she was a stupid long-neck too.” It’s a stunningly mean comment, especially considering how, during said T-Rex attack, LF’s mother also saved Cera’s life. Tragically, those words cause LF to violate impulsivity himself when he and Cera get into a huge fight, the former triumphing since she’s stronger. As if that weren’t enough, Cera continues violating the delicacy of honor and morality by turning her nose up while walking away. LF tries to get the others moving, but he pays for his prior mistake when Ducky and Spike decide to follow Cera instead. Petrie attempts to follow LF but, since he can’t fly, ultimately can’t reach him. Reluctantly, he follows Cera too, leaving LF to head off alone.

Sadly, following Cera proves a colossal mistake. She ends up violating terrain yet again, for her “easy route” leads to an area of active volcanoes (known as “the mountains that burn”) and tar pits; in comparison, LF’s route, harder as it would’ve been, would’ve followed Sun Tzu’s advice on terrain by skirting that area. Things soon turn critical due to the area’s instability, starting when an earthquake causes Petrie to lose his grip and fall into a tar pit. His frantic screams draw Ducky and Spike after him, but they’re soon marooned on a rock in a lava flow, causing them to scream for help too. Those screams draw LF, who follows morality by racing down to save them. He uses terrain to save Ducky and Spike by knocking a rock over to use as a bridge, and then the trio race to the tar pit for Petrie. Unfortunately, they violate impulsivity and terrain when they charge into the tar pit itself and all supposedly become stuck.

Meanwhile, Cera is facing her own crisis via a group of pachycephalosauruses, all bigger/stronger than her, who’ve isolated her in a cave. Here, she shows another of Sun Tzu’s Fatal Failings, cowardice,⁶ since no one screams for help as much or frantically as her. Soon, she’s trapped…until a large, mysterious creature appears, frightening off her attackers. It grabs Cera’s tail, lifting her off the ground while she continues frantically screaming for help from anyone (even LF), another cowardice violation, until the “creature” is revealed to be her companions covered in tar. The latter immediately burst out laughing at Cera, prompting her to violate delicacy of honor and impulsivity again when she tries to pretend she’s not afraid. Unfortunately, it costs her when, while doing so, she fails terrain in turn: trying to stalk off, she clumsily slips on tar from her companions’ disguise and then walks into a large rock, each time eliciting more laughter. Finally, she walks off, but the damage is done. She soon collapses and begins crying as the truth hits home: trying to prove how great she was, she’d gone the wrong way, nearly gotten everyone killed, and proved she’s all talk.

This was an ugly situation brought on by ugly circumstances, but it shows just how wide-reaching Sun Tzu’s wisdom can be. Even in simple moments like this one, it’s important to realize the truth: following Sun Tzu’s wisdom in a crisis will lead to victory, while ignoring it only leads to disgrace and failure…as Cera learned the hard way.

Notes:

1: Art of War, dir. David W. Padrush (2009).

2: The Land Before Time: The Original Movie, dir. Don Bluth (1988)

3:  Lionel Giles, The Art of War (New York, NY; Fall River Press, 2011), 28

4: Giles, The Art of War, 3

5: Giles, The Art of War, 3

6: Giles, The Art of War, 28

Bibliography

Bluth, Don, director. The Land Before Time: The Original Movie. 1988; Universal Studios, 2019, 68 min. Blu-ray.

Padrush, David W., director. The Art of War. 2009; A&E Television Networks, 2009. 94 min. DVD. 

Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Translated by Lionel Giles. New York: Fall River Press, 2011.

 Presenting for your consideration: Sun Tzu and Entertainment: The Land Before Time’s “Easy Route”, an essay showing how to use “The Art of War’s” wisdom to explain pop culture plotlines, even those of children’s films.

Andrew’s originally from Massachusetts, and has been a military history/tactics/strategy fan for almost 30 years. He started writing in high school, continued while earning his BA in History (English minor) at UMASS Lowell and JD at Mass. School of Law, and never looked back. He’s since self-published a novella on Amazon, printed 1 article apiece on Polygon, Anime Herald, this publication, and Pipeline Artists, 2 more on Ariel Chart, and recently printed a short story in Evening Street Review’s 2022 Winter Edition. He can be found daily on Twitter (AndrewNickers19@), analyzing pop culture characters via Sun Tzu.