Silence and spell resistance

[Agodeshalf]

This came up in our last session, and I guess I'm curious what the consensus is. The initial question was who actually gets a saving throw vs a silence spell cast at a point in space. Initially our GM ruled that everyone in the area of effect get a Will save as well as spell resistance. There was a difference of opinion among our group, as some argued that unless a creature was actually targeted by the spell, and was unwilling, there is no saving throw, nor SR. We ended up going with no saving throw, but then the question became if you entered the area of effect of a silence spell, would SR come into play or not? Since silence is an AoE, one would assume that SR would apply, but by virtue of the previous argument, SR could be construed to only apply if the individual was directly targeted.

[Val'bryn2]

My way of looking at it, SR does nothing when it's a point in space. SR is supposed to work similar to armor against spells, and so if you aren't targeted, your armor does nothing.

[TriOmegaZero]

Targeting a point in space avoids having to overcome SR, but the creatures just have to exit the area instead. You only have to overcome SR if you are targeting the creature directly.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Silence on a point in space doesn't really affect any creatures; it affects the area around them so that sound doesn't propagate, just as darkness stops light. You don't give someone with SR a chance to negate the darkness near them, nor the silence. This is in contrast to fireball, which darn well affects everything it hits.

[Anguish]

Yup. The spell text pretty much breaks down how it works.

Saving Throw Will negates; see text or none (object)
Spell Resistance yes; see text or no (object)

So if you're not casting on a creature, there's no save or SR. The area simply doesn't allow sound.