[Rimbaud]

The Vanyar were self-evidently the superior people. Not only is this expressly stated by Tolkien, of whom they are the invention, but also derived from my own understanding of the text. It seems that people, not only here, but in the wider world, have a misapprehension of what comprises virtues and downfalls. The Vanyar lived in peace and contentment, close to the apex of learning and understanding that a non-Ainur race could attain. This exalts them above the petty Noldor, with their strife and childish quarrels. Not only that, but the Noldor left for Middle-Earth, clearly distancing themselves from peaceful existence, thus stamping themselves with the hall-mark of an immature race.

The creation of artifacts and weapons, and the conquest of peoples are not achievements, when placed alongside millennia of peaceful and beneficial co-existing, as achieved by the Vanyar. Additionally, as with the Valar, when they are truly needed elsewhere, the Vanyar do not forsake the world to maintain their own equilibrium, but they march forth, to the rescue of those that spurn them.

The goal of a people is peace, beneficial co-existence and the attainment of understanding and benevolence. The Noldor forsook these principles early in their history, and it is arguable whether or not Men ever perceived them.