avari

Avari is a term from J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium used to describe the Elves who did not undertake the Great Journey to Valinor and therefore did not reach the Blessed Realm. In most accounts they are grouped under the broader category of Moriquendi, the Elves who never saw the light of the Two Trees. The designation Avari highlights their choice or failure to migrate westward, in contrast to the Calaquendi (the Elves who did go to Valinor and witnessed the Trees’ light).

The Avari did not constitute a single political or cultural entity. They represented a loose collection of Elven kindreds and communities who remained in Middle-earth or elsewhere rather than crossing the sea to Aman. Because they did not share in the experiences and revelations associated with Valinor, little unified history or doctrine is attributed to them in the primary texts. Over the ages, various Moriquendi in Middle-earth interacted with the more distant Elven communities who had reached Valinor or with the kingdoms that later formed there.

In the published writings, notably The Silmarillion and related posthumous works edited by Christopher Tolkien, the Avari are described more by their absence of the Westward Journey than by a defined culture. Their fate and characteristics thus remain less documented than those of the Calaquendi and the later exiled Noldor and Sindar. The term is used to indicate a broad category rather than a precise, unified group.

See also: Moriquendi, Calaquendi, The Silmarillion.