How strong will HBO be in the face of criticism from the religious right?

[Ran]

pablonohablo,

Martin (to his credit) portrays life in Westeros as close to 11th century Europe as he can.

Rather later than that. Primarily, he's looking at the 14th-15th century as his primary inspiration, but certainly there's a continuum which includes norms of earlier time periods

The women of his time can never be the head of a society (or a marriage)

Not true. Ignoring the Dornish, we see ruling ladies here and there: Lady Stokeworth and Lady Waynwood rule in their own right.

SPOILER: AFfC and "The Sworn Sword

Asha is given the opportunity to become Lord Harlaw's heir. In "The Sworn Sword", there's Lady Webber. And most notably, there is Cersei Lannister, who becomes Lady of Casterly Rock.

... a crap movie with a story based in large part on attacking the values of religious folks (who, much to the chagrin of the Bill Maher-types, make up most of the world's population).

Curiously, in the quite Catholic country of Spain and in the comparably religious Austria (according to a Gallup survey of religiosity) -- Catholicism and other centrally organized flavors of Christianity being the primary targets of Pullman -- the film made almost as much money as did the Christian allegory of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I don't think your explanation of "attacking values of religious folks" holds for much of the rest of the world, as the religious folks in the rest of the world seem to have understood in this particular case that fiction is, well, fiction.

Poor performance in the U.S. probably does have to do with the particularly disgraceful level of religious dialogue in the country, co-opted as it has been by politics, and perhaps a lack of brand recognition (Pullman's series is no Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter as far as readership goes). Countries where religion and politics are more distinctly separated did not have the problems with the film that the U.S. had.

[Smoldering Hound]

The fact that this thread is still on the first page only shows that this forum could use more action. Sigh.