Druid animal follower switching sides?

[GriffinRider]

How do I briefly describe this, and then get around to my question...I've got a low-to-mid-level ranger (6th level) hanging around with our mid-to-high level group (average of 11th level, getting close to 12th). This has to do with a convoluted situation involving the Leadership feat and a buddy's wife wanting to dip her toes into the gaming world; have mercy on me. Anyway, the group is up against an evil bunch that includes a druid who has a lion as her animal companion. Now, the two groups have gone into the maze-like temple to have their show-down and try to retrieve the artifact and so on and so forth. The ranger has been left outside with the mounts and wagon since the rest of the party wisely - and somewhat meta-game-ly - decided she would probably die awful quick in the temple. I have decided the NE druid has left her companion outside as well. There's some animosity between the ranger and the lion due to a previous run-in. While the main group is having their fun I am doing a little side encounter for our noob, wherein the ranger knows the lion is around somewhere and will try to hunt it down and finish it off. Hopefully, inside the temple the players will be able to beat their enemies- including the druid, which would leave the lion un-affiliated as it were. And I'm thinking about a situation where the ranger may be presented with the choice of either fighting the lion, or possibly taking it on as her own animal companion (she doesn't have one yet) once the druid has been killed and the bond has been broken. Just trying to make it a little more interesting, force a little grey area onto my new player rather than just make it about hacking away. Chance for forgiveness and redemption and all that. And now for my question: if the druid was cruel and evil and her companion was likewise encouraged to entertain his predatory nature, was the lion really evil? Is it still evil if the druid dies? Could a good-aligned ranger make the choice to spare this creature and bond with it as her own companion and "re-hab" it back to good? Or is the lion sort of forever an evil animal now? The rules talk about "loyal" companions, and being a druid's companion changes the creature in a lot of ways, but once the former "master" is gone, how much does the animal revert to it's natural, neutral state? Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?

[eggynack]

Animals be neutral, yo. Not even sure if I have exceptions to that offhand, and simply being an animal companion to a jerkface ain't one of them. The lion was aligned to someone evil, but that doesn't mean it'd plot world destruction or specifically go after babies if left to its own devices. If the druid suddenly had a change of heart, the lion would just keep on keeping on as the druid's companion, doing whatever good or neutral things the druid had in mind. Don't much see a problem with the plan, as a result.

[jdizzlean]

the problem would be in determining if the lvl 11 equivalent animal companion (the lion) is even allowed to become a new animal companion for a lvl 6 ranger when their hd are so drastically wrong.

in addition to that, you have a large amount of changes that the lvl 11 lion has gone through being the animal companion of the druid. nothing in the rules says the animal would revert back to it's "natural" state, so you'd have to seriously homebrew the encounter to make the lion somehow lose 5 lvls and revert back all the extra abilities it has.

you'd also have to figure out how the peon ranger would "trap" the lion