In the panel in question, the room has been divided down the middle by Hana’s and Asterios’s respective styles and both characters are facing the reader.
As Ignazio had suggested metaphorically in the previous pages, their worlds have been literally colored by their differing perspectives.  

The second time the panel appears, a near two hundred pages later, the angle has been changed entirely. Instead of placing the two characters on either side of the panel, giving the reader an objective, disinterested perspective, now the viewer is placed behind the characters.  Asterios stands in the upper right corner of the panel, and Hana stands in the lower left corner.  Because of this differing angle, instead of being a passive observer the readers now have a sense of involvement.

Although much of the novel critiques Asterios’s perspective, to discount him as a person would be to fall into the very same trap that Mazzucchelli is exposing. Accordingly, there are also several abrupt corrections to the readers’ perception that humanize Asterios. In the beginning of the novel, Mazzucchelli shows the readers the dilapidated state of Asterios’s apartment: the desk is covered with a dozen or so half-opened overdraft bills, the windows have been carelessly left open as rain pours in, and the kitchen is inundated by a pile of dishes that could probably threaten New York’s entire ecosystem. When the readers finally meet Asterios, their first introduction has him lying on his bed with an empty, vacant expression as he watches TV.

Unless the readers take the time to walk slowly through the novel, that initial perception of Asterios will likely remain unchanged. If, however, the readers are attentive, their perspective will change entirely the first night Asterios invites Hana over for dinner. Instead of eating out, Asterios chose to cook the meal for Hana, with enough skill to switch to a vegetarian dish halfway through his preparation. 
Asterios, secretly pleased though trying to remain unaffected, pours her a glass of wine and asks, “You like that?”. In the span of two panels, the perception readers might have formed regarding Asterios at the beginning of the book has changed. In the first judgment, Asterios is simply a lonely man who has given himself up to an intangible lust; in the second, more informed judgment, Asterios is still a lonely man, but this time he is one who has realized that he missed out on the opportunity to truly perceive his wife for who she was.

The readers must alter their perspectives as a result of discovering these missing details, but in this case, the error is not the result of missing something that could have been known at the time. Outside of the specific knowledge that Asterios’s apartment is constantly being videotaped and the detail regarding Hana and Asterios’s conversation, it would be impossible to correctly interpret the opening scene.
Asterios had no idea, and in his defense, there had been no obvious way for him to know. The problem here, just as it was for the reader, does not stem from ignoring accessible information. Rather, the fault of Asterios lies in assuming that his perception is complete and needs no other information, and therefore he may judge indiscriminately.
