After being exposed again to some golden age stories courtesy of Mystery in Space, it is interesting to note a characteristic of the early science fiction genre that I never had before. In this one series there are two cases where a leader of some kind sends his daughter along on missions with the hero of the story (or at the very least allows her to tag along.) This occurs with both Ora in the Knights of the Galaxy and with Alanna in her adventures with Adam Strange. Outside of this series I can’t say how much it happens, though an obvious example would be Talia and Batman and a less obvious one and less accurate would be Vader and Leia. The daughter of Ming the Merciless also shows up often on the side of the heroes. The use of daughters as a main protagonist is an interesting one. It could be seen to have some basis in the concept of romantic love from the Middle Ages, but it seems as often as an example of the emancipation of female characters. Whereas other characters such or Wonder Woman got jobs in occupations where women were breaking some new ground, there was no real job for space faring women other than companion or maybe at best science officer. It is interesting thus to see this characteristic of the genre as one which had both roots in older fiction as well as the emancipated versions of female characters in the then present day.
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