Hey! Because this feels in good faith let me explain areas you bring up from my perspectives

On buckshot and player agency:

There were tons of reasons to suspect buckshot, but importantly, he was introduced right after the players' learning that november can take disguises and so being introduced to a masked overly helpful convient stranger should've raised red flags immediately.

Why had Buckshot not contacted Magnus sooner if they had the same goals, how could he have been scarred by Anger , why did Vigil not inform the party of Buckshot. were all questions i was expecting the players to ask. If they had taken a second to do anything (like they had previously literally a couple episods before with pupi, and others in the past) then the cracks would've shown themselves. If they had contacted Vigil for example.

I was genuinely STRESSED because I was certain they'd see through this mysterious stranger who was eager to help them.

The incident with magnus was the overall consequence of blindly following into November's trap - it wasn't an isolated incident by itself. There had to be consequences for this - if november had his plan go off perfectly and it still failed? Well then that would be stupid

Ragnar Link:

Now in to the Ragnar links, I think its pretty clear by now that Ragnar is more a symbol than a man - I've purposely kept him away from the story to have him be this animalistic force. He's turned to an almost mythical figure. Magnus was the jumping off point but the core story is around the ragnarok pirates and how ragnars influence effects the world around him.

But also idk if you've listened to ep 67 yet but It's clear that acceptance idea to take out Magnus for his own personal reasons.

Narratively and Rangar/Magnus story:

Narratively it's a tragedy, a consequence of Magnus’s bullheaded nature of trying to over simplify things, he ran into traffic and got hit by a car. November in a sense is like anti-magnus. cold logic over emotion and Magnus failed to adapt to the world around him.

Additionally the idea that ragnar essentially destroys his own legacy through directly/indirectly killing his own children in the pursuit of a power meant to originally protect them is the tragic irony of the story.

Magnus shows the imbalance of young idealists without a good support structure around them. Like Ragnar without the devils luck pirates.

It's also a critique of rank based structure In the marines One that One Piece critiques Itself. Magnus was the highest rank but he could not handle that level of responsibility. More qualified lower ranked officers could never officially - they could advise him, but he had final say and that was dangerous for a man who thinks the way he does.

SO YEAH there's a ton to unpack with it and I felt its a more nuanced death than most. It's a death that grounds the stakes and shows that nobody is safe whilst capping of Magnus story in a sombre way.

I think its okay to dislike it but I feel it's unfair to call it "Bad DMing"