Nate the Rake is a nickname for Nate, the default male player character in Fallout 4, reframing him as a war criminal. The moniker emerged after Bethesda Game Studios' design director Emil Pagliarulo suggested that Nate was the soldier standing beside an executioner during Canada's annexation, a dark event depicted in the original Fallout's intro cinematic1.

The "rake" in the nickname is a dark pun. Canada's flag features a maple leaf, so "raking" Canadians refers to collecting fallen leaves. The joke implies Nate was responsible for killing Canadian civilians and resistance members during the U.S. annexation4. Despite Pagliarulo walking back the claim hours later, calling it an internal idea never made official5, the Fallout community embraced the war criminal interpretation with enthusiasm.

The meme taps into Fallout's retrofuturistic lore, where a resource-starved America annexed Canada and violently suppressed resistance. Players found dark comedy in connecting their customizable protagonist to these atrocities, giving Nate a sinister backstory the game never intended3.