... shouldn't the opposite of life be death, or are we just screwing around now
No we weren't screwing around, we were brainstorming.
Life's opposite
IS death, but I didn't talk about the elements being inverses, but the bonus stats for said elements being inverses. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'inverse' at all, but my main point was to simplify the regarding stats to 2s and 4s.