When that happened, I, as a player, was horrified, so I could imagine everyone else was just absolutely crushed.

How about in IX when Zidane learns he is an artificial construct, and thus so very like Vivi, a guy Zidane has been doing his damnedest to convince how human he is? Suddenly, Zidane is not telling Vivi, "Hey, you are like me!", it is, "I...I am like Vivi." And he is suddenly looking at Vivi to see how to deal with the world instead of the other way around.