Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping earth, each one halfway over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.
– “Titus Groan” by Mervin Peake
It’s a mood.
Judging through the lens of history? A common enemy, and time. If there was another workable solution to the larger problem, they would have found it by now, as many people considerable smarter than me have tried.
No outside factor can build a durable peace, unless that peace is desired from within. Strong-arm tactics from the outside lead to cease fires, not peace. The lid goes back to the pot, but the fire is still there.