I sense a degree of singularness inherent to the concept of Life in Homestuck… I’ve mused before about how Heart and Life are like different approaches to the same philosophical question - while a Heart is a persisting essence which follows a character throughout multiple iterations and creates a persistent ‘arc’ across multiple timelines, a Life is exactly that, beginning with birth and ends with death, singular - and a similar sort of dichotomy emerges between Life and what we are led to believe is its counterpart, Doom. whereas Doomedness is about offshoots, and Sollux as a character is defined by his plurality, just one cog in a vast machine, one of the very first things we learn about Feferi is that she’s “the only of [her] kind known to possess [the most noble blood]”. (which it may be worth noting is not even true.)

so when we learn that the Condesce “could extend life, but never restore it”, it’s not just a unique caveat to Meenah’s abilities, but an indication of what it actually means to control “Life”? to have the ability to heal, but never to generate (hey, just like how everything Meenah gives birth to dies). Jane’s abilities are similarly “limited to a one time only use per individual” - like a Maid’s job is to flutter around fixing things that are broken, never really exerting any real power or influence for themselves.

and insofar as Life is associated with a Hero’s literal lifespan, that’s the exact same kind of trade-off going on in Alternia’s class system; the longer your Life, the less populous your caste is (and as such the less you generate), and the less psychically open you are to communion with your peers. it’s being part of a machine or it’s being lonely