alosso: The players will forget...
I don't think they will forget. The wine has been spilled, and there is no getting it back in the bottle. Now if the simile is a piece of fruit, then you can toss the bad fruit or cut the spoiled portion out to save the rest.
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar...."
"O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men."
That was written hundreds of years ago, but the lessons live on because the truths are unchanged.