[Formendacil]

Having not read previous threads about this--that I can recall, anyway--I get to blissfully make points that may well have been brought up before. However, that is not deterrent in the slightest, so here I go.

Firstly, I would agree, but only to an extent, that the Valar made the wrong call. I think this is supported by The Silmarillion narrative, but it's one of those "wrong in hindsight" calls. Insofar as the Valar were wrong, it has more to do with the fact that they, themselves, retreated from the affairs of early Middle-earth, and in so doing abandoned it to Morgoth. This led to the inevitable situation wherein they either had to abandon the Elves as well, or they had to intervene.

Intervening was, clearly, the right choice to make, and the war on Morgoth and his subsequent imprisonment in Valinor was clearly the right call. Should the Elves have been left in Middle-earth thereafter or summoned west? Well, asking that question kind of assumes a perfect world. Middle-earth was still very dangerous, and dark. Without the Sun and Moon, it could certainly have been construed as unjust for the Valar to have excluded the Elves from the light of the Trees, and from the safety and protection that Valinor offered.

The Valar could either have relocated themselves to Middle-earth, invited the Elves to Valinor, or simply let the Elves be in Middle-earth. They chose the middle course, when perhaps the should have chosen an extreme course (and I'm not really sure which extreme course would have been better).

Furthermore, it seems to me that, in the long run the Elves ought to have been invited to Valinor... but perhaps not before the First Age. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to have invited the Elves west once they began to wane, once the Dominion of Men began and the shifting change of the world had begun to wear on the Elves. Although sad, from the perspective of the Men left behind, I don't think one can argue that it is unfair--in the Fourth Age--for the Elves to go West and find respite, given their vastly different natures, and the inevitable envy of the Doom of Men.

Perhaps, in that case, the mistake of the Valar was more in their timing than the nature of their summons--it pre-emptively changed the course of Elven development, sapping too much energy and population from Middle-earth, which needed their numbers and energy (note the shadowy existence of the Silvan and Avari Elves) and brought them to too sharp a point in Valinor (hence, among other things, their unrest and desire for lands to rule and make their own). If their was a "perfect" way for the Valar to act, I think the way of Melian in Doriath may not be such a bad case.

Of course, this ignores the Marring of Arda wrought by Morgoth, and is heavily counter-factual... but that gives the next responder plenty of grounds to build an alternative case.