WoW Chronicle Volume 3 retcons Med’an from canon lore in hilarious fashion

He’s been a controversial figure since he was first introduced, and now, he’s been quietly shown the door. Med’an, that omni-powerful New Guardian of Tirisfal last seen in the World of Warcraft comic book, is no longer canon in the Warcraft setting. As we mentioned in this round-up of the Chronicle Volume 3 preview, if you search for Med’an’s name in the index, you are directed to page 404. It’s a reference to a 404 error when looking for a webpage that doesn’t exist.

Admittedly, the lore changes in Chronicle are bigger than just Med’an’s lack of existence, but it’s kind of fascinating to see how much more nuanced the story becomes without him. Instead of being buried under rubble until he gets free, Cho’gall heads to Northrend. He’s the one who snaps the chains on Yogg-Saron, for example. Garona is motivated by her hatred of the Twilight’s Hammer and Cho’gall. It’s no longer out of a desire to find her son, since he doesn’t exist. It really alters the lore in a positive way, and I say this as someone who’ll miss making jokes about Med’an training in a spaceship. At this point, his not having made any appearances in game was kind of a huge neon sign. It was time for something like Chronicle to come along and say something.

But it’s not the only way the book has changed the lore. Some of these changes aren’t really contradictory, so much as they expand what we already knew. Having Kil’jaeden use the Dreadlords to torture Ner’zhul doesn’t really alter the story in any significant way. Remember, the Chronicle books are summaries of the lore. They’re not going to reprint the entire story of a novel or game or we’d be here forever. At that point we might as well just go and read the book in question instead. But the removal of Med’an isn’t an elision or a simplification made to allow the story to be told in a broad way. It’s an outright change that alters things we thought we knew. Cho’gall does different things, Garona acts for different reasons.

In my eyes, the removal of our favorite “By your powers combined, I am Captain Azeroth” character is only a positive change for the story. No more Medivh and Garona sitting in a tree, just more complex motivations for everyone involved. Maybe they’ll bring in the Warcraft movie origin for Garona, that would be interesting.