They may get moral credit for it, but they don't get any brain credit because they didn't figure it out for themselves.

You deliberately omit 'if' part of the supposition, that is, if elves stopped because of dwarves telling them, and not because they just 'saw' the similarities between the dwarves proper and petty dwarves for themselves and than stopped.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to suggest you go back and re-read the section helpfully provided by Raynor in post #10. Specifically the bit about…

There is no “if.” The Elves did not know until the Dwarves told them. I don’t see how it could possibly be any clearer.

I'm afraid that the passage you direct me to is open in this respect

First part says 'elves did so and so'
Second part says 'dwarves did so and so'

It is not clear that elves 'did so' because dwarves 'did so'. For all we know, elves may have seen the connection on their own. If we were after pure logic, I would add that 'after' does no equal 'because', but we aren't, and I admit the importance of the meeting as it ends the hunt. But again, whether elves decide to stop at the 'normal' dwarves bidding or of their own accord is not seen from the passage.

I think you've been missing my point. I'm not particularly interested in why the Elves stopped. I think the Elves stopped because of their own moral compass.

What I am interested in is proving that the Elves were stupid for not figuring it out on their own and they should not have been so surprised when the great Dwarves came over the mountains. I think the evidence in this regard is compelling. Whether the Elves made the connection after seeing the great Dwarves or whether the Dwarves showed them the error of their ways after being served roast Tad-dail on a stick isn't that vital to me.

M-m, my mistake, than

I will still pledge the innocence of the accused. An analogy is in order here:

Won't you be surprised to see some great squid coming out of the sea to say in perfect English (or Esperanto) that octopuses some of us have been eating all their lives were in fact his/her cousins and he/she was deeply hurt by our uncultured behavior and requested wereguild?

True, intelligent octopus is harder to guess out than upright-going petty dwarves, but the principle is the same. Besides, let alone cousins, what we, as a race, will try to do to intelligent squid in the first place?

Ummm...I think your analogy is a little extreme.

Admittedly, it was not something they were expecting, but they had enough evidence to know something was up.