West-elves

A broad term for one of the two main branches of the Elves. In the early history of that people, the Vala Oromë invited the Elves to travel from the Water of Awakening in the East of Middle-earth to dwell with the Valar in the West. Many of the Elves wished to do so, and began a Great Journey westward across Middle-earth toward its distant shores. This was the beginning of the West-elves, but not all of these early Elves wished to make the Great Journey. Many others remained behind in the East, becoming known as the Avari, the Unwilling, or the East-elves.

This is the simple distinction given in Tolkien's introduction to the history of the Elves in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, where the West-elves are explicitly equated with the Eldar, a name for all those who set out on the Great Journey, whether or not they eventually crossed the Sea. In the event, many of the Eldar did not complete the Great Journey, giving up on the march before its end.

Among those who abandoned the Journey were a people known as the Nandor, from whom the Silvan Elves of Lórien and of Mirkwood would descend. This raises a complication, because these people were definitively Eldar,¹ but in his comments on this topic, Tolkien specifically states that these Silvan Elves were not counted among the West-elves. On the face of things, there is a contradiction here. If all the Elves of the Great Journey were Eldar, and 'West-elves' is a name for the Eldar, then the Silvan Elves should belong to the Eldar too. Matters are further complicated by the fact that the Sindar are counted among the West-elves, though, like the Nandor, they also remained in Middle-earth.

The text that introduces these difficulties is intended as brief introduction to a rather complex topic, so it may be that Tolkien was intentionally simplifying the intricate web of relationships between the different peoples of the Elves. This simplified account, however, makes it extremely difficult to categorise the 'West-elves' within the context of the broader history.