Just asking these questions underscores lack of understanding how things are usually done in Django and Python in general.

In Django you'd typically use simple classes (models or forms, or even dataclasses nowadays) more than dicts everywhere; n+1 is trivially avoidable (as another sibling comment points out, and you also have multiple packages that autodetect such cases if you've missed them).

Python in general has a more "consenting adults" than "defensive programming" attitude (which doesn't mean exessive coupling or spaghetti, but the approach is different from the Java or C# mindset).

There's no one THE correct style of programming.