Xaphania
Xaphania is a character in the His Dark Materials trilogy by English author Philip Pullman. A female angel, she is the leader of a contingent of her kind taking part in Lord Asriel's war against the Authority. Xaphania first appears in the third book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, at a council of Asriel's commanders. Like all Pullman's angels, she appears naked, winged and luminous; due to her high rank and great age, she is clearly visible to corporeal beings. As is the norm with members of the angelic orders in the novels, there is a certain ambiguity surrounding Xaphania's exact appearance. She appears both ancient and young, compassionate and austere. The angel Balthamos is the first character to refer explicitly to Xaphania. As he explains to Will Parry, she discovered that the Authority had lied to the other angels regarding his status as the original Creator and so was banished from the Clouded Mountain. This was the start of the first struggle against the Kingdom, Xaphania being the leader of the rebel angels who intervened in human evolution to give mankind consciousness some thirty thousand years ago. Towards the end of trilogy, and after the defeat of the Authority's forces, it is Xaphania who explains to Will and Lyra Belacqua that all the windows between the worlds must be sealed to prevent Dust from leaking away into the abyss, and that the Æsahættr (the subtle knife) must be destroyed.
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