LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 02 - The Council of Elrond

[Tuor of Gondolin]

I've always thought (taking into consideration that I was a history major in college) that two chapters were especially fascinating, crucial, and "grabbers"
(that is, getting one drawn into the long tale)
1) The Shadow of the Past and
2) The Council of Elrond. (Plus also the concept of elves. Upon first reading LOTR
it wasn't until a future chapter and an incident involving Glorfindel and Frodo that
I realized that Tolkien's elves weren't those irritating little leprechaun-like beings. (And I'm part Irish).

Certainly there is more then one "eye-opener" in the chapter.
To cite one bit of allusions to Middle-earth not being abandoned to evil
forces, but done in Tolkien's way of alluding tantalizingly of a universe
not manichaean but with forces aiming to help, while not dominating,
free wills:

What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we must deem. That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.

This is, of course, an echo of the observation (by Gandalf?)
about Bilbo being meant to find the Ring, and not by intent of the Ring.

And recall that initial readers of LOTR did so without the Silmarillion, UT, or
HoME. The literary effect is of a world into which one is barely glimpsing, at a
moment of crucial importance. You're almost like the proverbial fly on the wall.
(Perhaps like a certain hobbit sitting in on a secret council to which he was not
invited).