I feel like alignment is a harder and faster rule with dragons than with player characters, but I'd like some other Pathfinder (and Golarion) specific minds to think about how much wiggle room there might be on the alignment of chromatic dragons. Or expressed actions despite inherent alignment inclinations.
I'm thinking specifically of red dragons here. We know from Paizo sources that they're chaotic evil. They're the largest and most powerful chromatic dragons, and if one of them spares an innocent maiden from murder and consumption, it's because they like to enslave humans and elves as pretty, fragile additions to the hoard while they last. And then eat them later. So not exactly the gray area of gardening, academic greens.
Buuuuut. In social science and animal behavior, there's always a question of nature vs nurture. Is that something to consider for dragons raised in unusual circumstances? How much could their chaotic evil alignment be considered cultural or learned, and how much should we say at a certain age it's too big a part of them not to come out? Like when people try to raise wolves as if they were domestic dogs, it works until a certain age, but dragons are intelligent and can be reasoned with.
I guess regardless of being stuck evil, there's always a chance even a chromatic dragon chooses to point their fire and brimstone elsewhere.
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It’s easier for them to change alignment than say Outsiders or Undead but harder than mortals, the Paladin’s Smite actually does bonus damage to them so it’s not just a cultural/nurture thing.
The first P2 AP, Age of Ashes, deals with dragons varying in alignment.
For your spoiler that’s entirely a GM/story choice, not a rule/setting choice.
Yeah, the nature vs nurture issue is a heavily skewed topic where dragons are concerned (even more so with outsiders). I'd argue they are genetically (and supernaturally) predisposed towards certain viewpoints, and it takes equally powerful or convincing situations to have a chance of altering it. Even then, it always come down to choice. If they possess sentience, they can make choices that defy their nature and eventually... change it. They have to want to make those choices though.
To become Good, you have to have an understanding of what it means to be Good, and why it is the superior way to be. The same goes for Evil. For Law (Order) and for Chaos. Alignment is merely the universe slapping you with a label that reflects that fundamental force that you have aligned yourself with, which best matches your inherent nature at the time.
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Many (most?) humans eat meat, a reasonable number of these meat eating humans are labeled "good" by other humans. Because killing and eating cows, fish, rabbits etc is not considered murder, my guess is because we view them as lesser creatures with no/fewer rights.
So, from a dragon's point of view is a human much different than a cow?
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I have a lot of fluff for Dragons in my homebrew setting. A Big part is that colour is based on their Driving motivations; Sin vs. Virtue.
Sin Dragons grow to become Chromatics while Virtue motivate Dragons grow to become Metalics.
This lets me do stories where a Red and Silver Dragon are siblings and such.
If a Dragon's primary motivation were to change it would gradually change colour as it molted.
I have a lot of fluff for Dragons in my homebrew setting. A Big part is that colour is based on their Driving motivations; Sin vs. Virtue.
Sin Dragons grow to become Chromatics while Virtue motivate Dragons grow to become Metalics.
This lets me do stories where a Red and Silver Dragon are siblings and such.
If a Dragon's primary motivation were to change it would gradually change colour as it molted.
I like that dragons are big obvious personifications of alignment, so I basically follow the same idea.
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Many (most?) humans eat meat, a reasonable number of these meat eating humans are labeled "good" by other humans. Because killing and eating cows, fish, rabbits etc is not considered murder, my guess is because we view them as lesser creatures with no/fewer rights.
So, from a dragon's point of view is a human much different than a cow?
You do nothing but bring confusion into the issue when you attempt to project real world subjective opinions on what constitutes good vs evil (or right vs wrong). Good and Evil are fairly defined in the game terminology, even if a lot of people don't agree with them. When the universe allows for spells that detect alignment, arguing about why it shouldnt be that way is like arguing with gravity as to why it doesn't work another way.
As for your point about a human not being much more different than a cow when it comes to being food, you have a good argument about the scale of difference between the two ... in a linear fashion. I'd suggest that intelligence has an exponential relationship to sentience, rather than a linear one.
Everything (for the most part) has to eat. Killing is not 'Evil' in the D&D universe. Holding no respect for sentient life and having no issues with using that life for your own purposes, without care for its inherent worth, ... that is "Evil".
Just pointing out another issue in trying to teach a dragon to be Good.