Also, it would seem that the word "rake" has some colloquial meaning that I've never heard before. From context I assume it's something like "willfully evil person", but I don't actually know.

It's an early modern-era term for a man accustomed to vice, especially sexual misconduct. I particularly associate the word with "A Rake's Progress", a series of paintings depicting a young aristocrat's descent into debt and insanity by way of all the dissolution you'd probably expect to find in a story like that, but you needn't limit it to that.

Crap, yes, that's fascist, thanks. Edited. (It's so obviously wrong now that you've pointed it out...)

Rake is actually kind of an old-fashioned word. I'm not very happy with it, but I couldn't think of one that I liked better. It's not so much willfully evil as indifferently evil: "I eat tic-tacs because I like the taste and don't care about their suffering". "Amoral" would have worked, but I wanted a noun. Possibly I should not have wanted a noun as much as I did.

Edit: I've inserted a working definition in the post.

I'm used to "rake" meaning an amorous nobleman; originally connoting disapproval but now implies more dashing than anything else. I don't think it really means evil.