It does in fact parse as a topic, but in doing so the value of the global variable “the noun” is altered to match the object referred to in the topic, which has unfortunate side effects for rulebook processing.
There’s a discussion about it on this forum, which lead to an issue being raised which at time of writing is Confirmed but not fixed. (I’m not sure whether “Confirmed” means “this happens” or “this happens and is a bug.”)
I’ve also raised a UserVoice suggestion in this area. Feel free to vote for it, or not, as you see fit 