Have you ever noticed that ever since Silent Hill 3 (where Vincent mentioned that Heather enjoyed 'killing people and stepping on them' and she says "what? do you mean the monsters?" and Vincent replies "Do They look like monsters to you?") where you get the Possessed ending for killing to many monsters which later followed into Silent Hill origins where if you kill more than 100 monsters you get the bad ending...so are the SH Monsters really people? If they are then it's becoming a bad gameplay trait which forces you to avoid most of the monsters and kill the ones that are in your way as long you don't go overkill in order to retrieve something good at the end which before SH3's concept of "the monsters are people" you could kill almost any monster on sight in SH1 and SH2 without any worries of getting a bad ending unlike SH3 and since then.

Note: I did post this thread originally on Silent Hill general forums until I realize I posted a minor SH0 spolier which I decided to delete the thread and moving it over here

No, the monsters are not people. Except for the Missionary, the Scrapers and Leonard.

Holy run on sentence, Batman!

I also don't see how that's a negative gameplay mechanic because I personally kill every damn thing I see and that's in my way, whether it looks "human" or not.

To be fair, this ending device only exists in SH3 and 0rigins, and even then only on your second playthrough onwards. And Mockingbird is right. SH3 is the only game that had real people as monsters.

Plus, Vincent did say he was joking. Maybe I'm naive but anybody that is willing to shut down the order should be telling the truth.

SH3 spoilers
[spoiler]Vincent was stealing money from the order.[/spoiler] Hes not the most trustworthy person.

Hmm, it never occured to me that the monsters were actually people.
I didn't really listen to that guy, so I don't think they are.

You know the possibility is there... considering these people are in a delusional state.

Will I say that they are meh... no In the end I don't think they are. But I won't say that's a define t. I think that somethings point to it especially in Origins... such as the "HELP ME" message written on the cap. But this is again debatable (aren't all things seemingly debatable in this game...)

Bottom line the monsters are monsters.

what "HELP ME" message? Where is that, I didn't see it.

there's a baseball cap on the ground near the front entrence of the butcher shop second time, right along the trail of blood that you follow. It's hard to see, but when you pick it up, on the top part of the rim, it says HELP ME or something like that.

...I thought that was a nurse's cap...

It is indeed a nurse's cap.

I felt sick to my stomach when..Vincent, there we go. I almost forgot his name. My sis and I call him, Wesley from Angel. If you have seen the show, you know what I am talking about.
Anyway, I felt sick to my stomach when Vincent said that. And again while reading Translated Memories and seeing the beginning sketchs of the zombie kids in the school for SH1. They do look like people.

For awhile, I believed the monsters were people, and fet sorry for killing them, but evetnually, I think on my 3 playthrough on extra hard mode for SH3, I got over and killed them...killed them all!

Yeah, I never got the impressions that the monsters were in fact people except a few rare instances. Regardless of what that creep Vincent said.

Heather was definitely the most believable antagonist you play as in the series, after running into him, doesn't she say something about that everyone in this town is crazy? lol

The town is closed. There's no people left in the town except for the obvious few you encounter. And the only other humans you see are mounted on the walls and stuffed inside cages as twisted trophies to the Otherworld.

There is no telling what the monsters really are, whether they exist at all or not making them simple figments of the imagination, or some dark real creature.

The town is not abandoned.

Except that Silent Hill is an active, bustling tourist town the entire series through, right?

And most of the humans you see in the Otherworld aren't real, they're manifestations.



Aside from the few exceptions in SH3, all the monsters in the series are psychic manifestations.

Even though Vincent was joking, I still am questionable about it...

But how do you KNOW that?

Well I think it's safe to assume. I mean, we don't hear of any mass murders after the events in the games. I can't think of anything that would suggest otherwise except for what Vincent said.